babe’s behind the scenes: “see yourself” in the bar
Hello and happy winter solstice! My early xmas gift to you is two exciting updates about our opening (I’m in frugal startup mode over here, sorry this gift isn’t wrapped beautifully). The first update is more of a call-to-action than an update - we want to decorate the bar with artifacts from your athletic past! The second update is my attempt to channel AOC and explain how city policy is playing a big part in the process to open our doors. Let’s see how I do at describing a city zoning hearing in an interesting way!! If you’re rushing around for the holidays and need just the headline: fill out this form ASAP if you have any cool artifacts from your athletic history (or present) that could be displayed at Babe’s! If you’re not rushing around and/or needing a distraction from the holidays (I feel you), keep reading!
update 1: co-create Babe’s with us!
We’re replacing the current dark granite of the bar top in our space with a beautiful wood top designed specially for Babe’s by a local queer woodworker. The wood was salvaged from a ballet studio, and we are designing it to create a strip in the bar that we can fill with epoxy and sports memorabilia. The goal is to fill this part of the bar with items donated by the community that celebrate the vastness of the history of women’s sports. It would be our honor to enshrine your accomplishments or celebrations at Babe’s, so that you can literally see yourself in the bar.
The items need to be mostly flat to work in this setting. A varsity patch or medal would work, but something thicker than that would not.
Our designer created this rendering of how the inlaid items would look. Imagine this with your roller derby trading card, the bib from the marathon you ran while pregnant, a vintage pennant from your aunt’s gay softball league… can you tell I’m excited about the possibilities here!
Additionally, we plan to display trophies and awards from local teams and athletes around the bar. We would love to be the home of the communal Chicago women’s trophy case 🏆 I will obnoxiously be arranging all trophies around the UChicago Womxn’s Rugby Team 2022 natty’s, naturally!
These trophies can have a permanent home at Babe’s, or can be on temporary loan - either way, we'd love to show you off! Go to babeschicago.com/about to submit your item.
update 2: one step closer to pouring you an espresso martini
We’ve been having to remind ourselves that getting a license to sell booze in Chicago is intended to be hard, As a quick rundown of the order of operations, in order for us to get the licenses to open, we need:
Approval from the City of Chicago’s Zoning Board of Appeals
An ordinance to lift the liquor license moratorium on our block to be passed by City Council
In early December, Alderman Fuentes introduced the ordinance at City Council, and it was sent to committee. They will meet in January (they didn’t have quorum for their December meeting) and refer the ordinance to be passed by City Council.
City Council will vote on the ordinance at their January meeting - there’s no indication that there will be any issues in it getting passed. Schoolhouse Rock really prepared us for this moment!
While waiting for City Council to vote in January, we made it onto the agenda for the December Zoning Board of Appeals meeting (which required applying for a Tavern License, getting rejected, and then applying for the appeals hearing, which required numerous back-and-forths with the city planner assigned to our case and many billable hours for our licensing lawyers).
The ZBA hearing was thankfully uneventful - we waited in the adjacent room on the 10th floor of City Hall, and when it was our turn we went in and swore into the record that our application was truthful. I had been practicing raising my right hand, and do think I nailed it. You can see in the pic above - we were really deep inside the workings of City Hall. The board didn’t ask us any questions, which our lawyers told us is a good sign. I left them some Babe’s stickers - not as a bribe but as evidence of how cute our brand is and how we deserve their approval!!! [UPDATE: I wrote this on Sunday night, and just now, on Monday morning, we got word from the lawyers that our matter passed! LFGGGGG]
Once the official approval comes from the ZBA, and the moratorium is lifted by City Council, we’ll be able to pay the licensing fees ($4,400 for the tavern license to serve alcohol, $770 for our Public Place of Amusement license to have events, and $1,760 for being able to drink on the patio), file all of the paperwork, and wait 30-60 days for our license to be processed. We’ve needed several espresso martinis just to get this far in the process, but we are very excited by reaching this zoning milestone (we’ve been working on this application since June!) and our batch espresso martinis (which we’ve been R&Ding the recipe for) are going to taste that much sweeter with all of the love we’ve put into this.
Our next update should include a timeline about our renovation and hopeful opening dates - we’re still aiming for late March! With how unreal college women’s basketball has already been, we’re going to need Babe’s to be open for March Madness 🏀🏀🏀
Thanks for your continued support on this journey! ALSO we are in the process of sending out the treats for your donations to our crowdfunding campaign! Some shirts have been sent out already, and if you ordered a pennant or hat those are being shipped out soon! Everything will be in the mail by the end of January, if not before :) I hope everyone gets a little break to rest over the holidays - see you in 2025!
xoxoxo
nora
